Reflections on the Year

Steve Dierker, Associate Laboratory Director for Photon Sciences

This is a very exciting period for photon sciences at Brookhaven
National Laboratory. It is also a time of unprecedented growth for the
Photon Sciences Directorate, which operates the National Synchrotron
Light Source (NSLS) and is constructing NSLS-II, both funded by the
Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Reflecting the quick pace of our activities, we chose the theme
“Discovery at Light Speed” for the directorate’s 2010 annual report, a
fiscal year bookended by October 2009 and September 2010.

The year began with the news that NSLS users Venki Ramakrishnan of
Cambridge University (also a former employee in Brookhaven’s Biology
Department) and Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University were sharing the
2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann
Institute of Science.

Every research project has the potential for accolades. In 2010, NSLS
users and staff published close to 900 papers, with about 170 appearing
in premiere journals. Those are impressive stats for a facility nearly
three decades old, testament to the highly dedicated team keeping NSLS
at peak performance and the high quality of its user community.

Our NSLS users come from a worldwide community of scientists using
photons, or light, to carry out research in energy and environmental
sciences, physics, materials science, chemistry, biology and medicine.
All are looking forward to the new capabilities enabled by NSLS-II,
which will offer unprecedented resolution at the nanoscale. The new
facility will produce x-rays more than 10,000 times brighter than the
current NSLS and host a suite of sophisticated instruments for
cutting-edge science.

Some of the scientific discoveries we anticipate at NSLS-II will lead
to major advances in alternative energy technologies, such as hydrogen
and solar. These discoveries could pave the way to:

catalysts that split water with sunlight for hydrogen production

materials that can reversibly store large quantities of
electricity or hydrogen

high-temperature superconducting materials that carry
electricity with no loss for efficient power transmission lines

materials for solid-state lighting with half of the present
power consumption

Excitement about NSLS-II is evident in many ways, most notably the
extraordinary response we had to the 2010 call for beamline development
proposals for the anticipated 60 or more beamlines that NSLS-II will
ultimately host. A total of 54 proposals were submitted and, after
extensive review, 34 were approved. Funding from both the Department of
Energy and the National Institutes of Health has already been secured to
support the design and construction of a number of these beamlines.

FY11 is a challenging and exciting year for the NSLS-II Project as we
reach the peak of our construction activity. We remain on track to
complete the project by March 2014, a full 15 months ahead of schedule
and with even more capabilities than originally planned. The Photon
Sciences Directorate is well on its way to fulfilling our vision of
being a provider of choice for world-class photon sciences and
facilities.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical,
biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security.
Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry
and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven
Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State
University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory
facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.